text:
Charles Matthews
Table of contents |
I'm a BGA 3 dan in Cambridge UK. I have written extensively on go for magazines, and on the Web (most of those articles are now on the Gobase site http://gobase.org). I also write books, one of which is published.
My email address is charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com.
Author of Teach Yourself Go.
I spend more time at Wikipedia these days. I have just started Wikipedia WikiProject Go, for which see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Go. I'm also going to make a page here about it,
New web series of articles
At http://gobase.org/studying/articles/matthews/exchanges/ there is a PDF file posted of the first article I wrote in an AGJ series.
Online posting of my book Shape Up!
The whole Kim-Matthews book is now posted. (There is also a FAQ for this at gobase.org.)
It was written with Seong-june Kim?.
23 October 2003
Second problem set posted.
8 October 2003
Chapter 9 posted at Gobase.
24 September 2003
Chapter 8 is posted today at Gobase. See
for all of the ten parts now published.
Older comments:
Rich: Thanks again, Charles; this is definitely set to be a classic go book. Section 7.3 especially was like a gift from above. Great stuff.
Stefan: Looks interesting. When will the book publish?
JG: I would also like to buy it.
Charles: I'll let you know when I know. It isn't so easy to get published.
saccade: Any word on this? The parts you put online have been really useful. I'd be willing to pay for a mailed printout if you can't manage to publish it.
Charles: As I say, I'll let people know.
Is it true you're changing the title to Waiting for Godot? ~ian~
Charles: No. But the interest level of trying to break into go authorship is well up to Sam Beckett's standards.
phenomene : I have just downloaded the chapter four. Congratulations Charles! You are a brilliant teacher and I will recommend Shape Up! to all the players in my go club.
saccade: Thanks a lot -- so far this book has been brilliant!
Enough: What program are you using to create those PDFs? I can get it down to 290K with Acrobat 6. Even all the other chapters online I can get about 50% size reduction.
Charles I export from Pagemaker 6.5.
Enough: Ahh. Have you tried InDesign 2? It's much better IMHO. They have a realatively cheap upgrade for Pagemaker users. We use it at work for online and print magazines. Switched from QuarkXpress and Pagemaker.
Vlad: It is a very interesting and good book! Thanks!
I have a question about one diagram: on the first page of chapter 8, the sequence leading to a ko when white cuts through the attach-and-extend joseki. Aren't moves and better kept as ko threats? I remember seeing this in another book, but can't remember which one.
Charles You can find slightly different versions of this 'joseki' in various books, I know.
Pimenta You can always publish it as an e-book, if everything else fails. Congratulations on this excellent piece of Go teaching.
(Hicham): Well done, i really find your book well writen and I am studying it now. One small question, is there a way for interested people to read the last chapters? Can you put 'em online somewhere or mail them . Probably you have a reason for not doing it, but know that people enjoy your work out there.
Uganda, June 2003
To Uganda on 6 July, to coach.
9 July: At Kampala YMCA teaching a daily go class.
19 July: After ten four-hour classes in 11 days, the first ever Go tournament in Uganda, a 16-player knockout on 13x13 boards, won by Moses Lukwago, whom I grade as 20 kyu. Also, two mentions in the sports section of The New Vision, the government-owned national daily newspaper.
21 July: I fly home, with another mention in The New Vision.
Photos now posted at http://gobase.org/information/pictures/?col=uganda .
And in 2006: I shall be in the same place 2-15 June.
- 5 June Lesson 1 : Take the corners
- 6 June Lesson 2: Don't play too close!
- 7 June ''Life and Death'
My online articles are at http://gobase.org/articles/matthews/ . I have also started to contribute to NRich, which is a mathematics teaching enrichment site. The pieces at
- http://nrich.maths.org.uk/mathsf/journalf/may02/art1/index.html
- http://nrich.maths.org.uk/mathsf/journalf/sep02/art2/index.html
may be of interest to anyone coming to go with a strongly mathematical background. Most 'rules' discussion in go has (in my opinion) little to do with effective teaching of the game. Those articles are the beginnings of a bridge.
June 2003: further article
has been posted.
I have added quite a large number of short pages with very brief biographies of pro players. My reference for this has been John Fairbairn's comprehensive Names Dictionary. We live in a very interesting time for the internationalisation of go.
Minor editing
Copy-editing is hardly "radical, anarchic" stuff. But there seems to be enough interesting discussion here on SL that house-styling the technical matter is worthwhile, and increases its legibility. I've been: making Black and White the nouns and black, white the adjectives; making references to lettered points a, b and so on; expanding abbreviations. See also SL Conventions.
Now, quite a few months later, the SL mark-up has taken some major steps forward. The site in general has still to catch up with
- the little-stones mark-up, and so on
- formatting of diagram titles includes text and link features
- hyperlinks out of diagram marked points
- hyperlinks to footnote markers [1], as anchors.
In editing, I've come to some conclusions about upper case:
- I systematically remove CamelCase (in almost all cases)
- diagram titles to start (only) with upper case, no full stop
- page titles mostly to start (only) with upper case (some exceptions for headline purposes, such as Recent Changes).
I edit out most smileys: if they are really needed to prevent misunderstanding, that's as a prop for weak or suspect writing that might need to go, too.
The position on Japanese terms is that many remain (e.g semeai) even in cases where there are good equivalents. Without being fanatical, I'm changing many as I come across them. The standardisation of names for joseki, enclosures, extensions , jumps and so on seems not to have raised many hackles. I think the main concentrations of Japanese usage are now in older pages, which on principle need some edits to bring them into line with current best practice. Quite a number of pages have had the Japanese term moved to alias status.
TY Go
Someone else added that I'm author of "Teach Yourself Go"; which I can't deny.
nuance: Why would you want to? It was the first book that actually managed to get me to understand the first thing about go beyond the utter basics.
Charles Opinions on my books seem divided. I don't do bland, so perhaps it's not surprising. My reticence is mostly because SL isn't the place for commercial promotion.
jgannon: I agree with nuance. I have a copy of TY Go and it's been exceptionally helpful learning Go.
se: More agreement. There's a blurb on the TYG book page saying that it's useful even for single digit kyu players. As a weak SDK, I can confirm that -- I'm learning a lot of basic techniques that I hadn't yet picked up, or that I had grasped only incompletely. I can feel myself improving as the gaps in my basic knowledge are filled. Much better than the book I started out with! Nice work, & thanks.
Pattern language(s) in go
Meatball Wiki is a different place from here, with experts on wikis contributing.
Jan: I was intrigued by your remarks there on a Pattern Language for Go. My only experience with the whole pattern business comes from my programming background, so I wonder how those ideas can be applied to Go. Is it something like the catalogue of shapes in Basic Instinct (which looks a bit like the famous Gang of Four book), or am I missing your point entirely?
Charles No, not entirely. It's a bit premature/pretentious to identify the pattern language 'syntax' (this problem in this context, therefore do this) with a high-level approach to go via patterns (suji/haengma/joseki/shape) where knowing the patterns is relatively easy but explaining their correct application is much harder. But there is some common ground there, certainly. And it's part of the standard Japanese approach to anything through kata, so it doesn't feel artificial to a go player. The point would be to try to explain this in an interesting way.
For my contributions to wikipedia see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Charles_Matthews. I'm not posting much about go.
While we're on the subject, people might like to read this: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Most_common_Wikipedia_faux_pas .
We aren't Wikipedia at SL: it would be nice to think of SL as a wiki.Charles Matthews
Yoon Jinhoon (Jin) was in Cambridge a little while ago.
I have identified this game from Falkener's book.
Yamamoto Samutsu Ikegami Kiyoshi Akiyama Tamigoro Higuchi Tetsuzo
AJP: Charles, you mention "Comment by Seong-june Kim 6d, from the unpublished book 'Fighting Fit'." on the sacrifice a single stone on the second line pages. Did this book ever get published? What happened to it?
eversonyoshi: Excuse me. My name is Éverson. I am brazilian. And I am 15k? in KGS. Since I learned Go, I was fascinated by Tengen Opening. I am playing the first move in Tengen as Black and as White for 1 year. Unfortunately, I am stop in 15k? and I don't know what to do to "evolute"... Do you know some site or pdf that teachs some "Tengen Skills" to help me? Thanks and sorry to write here without ask early... ^^' Ah, I was forgotting... my e-mail is email@example.com, thanks! =)
Phelan: Charles, I'd like to thank you for your spelling and grammar edits lately(at least I assume it was you), but could you please mark them as minor?
Charles Actually it was strategic, in a sense. Typos on a page usually means it is neglected. Churning neglected pages onto Recent Changes is a good thing, within limits. It's about time SL did some basic housework on this, I did expect some comment.


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I'm Gabrielle, the mother of five kids (including two sets of
twins) and I'm new to cargo biking. We own a bakfiets style trike made by Oak
Cliff bikes in Dallas, TX.
I can't
remember where I saw the bakfiets style bike in use, probably in the
Netherlands. I always thought they were awesome. Then one day stumbling around
the internet while searching something like "dutch bike for many kids", I
learned about Emily Finch. Then I read Sara's blog and watched "Less Car More
Go" about 90 times.
But since I live in Central TX, the conversations went like
this, "a bak-what?" This is an
area where the car is king. I spent many hours after learning about cargo bikes that there are none to be found in Central TX. I searched Craiglist and
checked out bikes shops in Portland and on the East Coast with no luck. Finally
someone told me about Oak Cliff Cargo bikes in Dallas. The rest as they say is
My husband thought I had lost my mind. My goal was to bike
our kiddos three blocks to the local elementary school (by myself) and return. I'm
from PA, and grew up in a college town with dedicated bike lanes and I
desperately wanted biking to be part of my life. I was used to walking or riding every place I wanted to go. I
want my children to know that they can physically go places by themselves at
their own pace. We retire this
spring and are moving back east. The Army will move my bike (at no cost to me)!
Win all around. The only problem was my husband had concerns about my ability
to ride a bike.
You see, in 2006, I fell out of a helicopter in Iraq. Luckily
for me it was not a combat injury, just an accident in a combat zone on the
last day of my deployment (because it couldn't be the first day naturally).
Long story short, I now have a spinal stimulator in my spine. I had to give up
my last bike, a nice folding Dahon because it was too much for my back. How was
I going to pedal four kids in a heavy wooden box? Enter Jonathan, the owner at Oak
Cliff, who added an electric assist to the bike. It makes all the difference in the world for
me as the electric help takes all the pressure off the base of my
spine. It has given me many new opportunities to interact
with nature, my children, and my community.
Biking allows you to interact with people and the world
around you. It draws people to you in a way that cars can't. On a bike, I am
approachable (once you get past the four squalling children). One time a woman pushing newborn twins
in a stroller chased me down two blocks to ask about it. People love my bike and
they tolerate me schlepping four kids in it.
Interestingly, we have a contingent of Dutch soldiers here at Fort Hood
(Air Cavalry, I believe). They often bike their kids to school. The love the
bike and offer tips. They even can pronounce "bakfiets."
I've had some wobbles with
it (I learned that the sidewalk with the benches are too narrow to navigate and I should stick to the car drop off lane). Fathers have pulled me out of the
mud. Women congratulate me. People wave and smile. My
children will meet people who embrace our nontraditional
transportation. We learn about the weather and we learn about each other (my
girls HATE their helmets). It is a source of much joy. The kids love to ride in
the bike and I love that I can master it and it truly allows us to embrace life
on a different level.
I am Gabrielle, a combat veteran, a clinical social worker,
a mother of multiple multiples and a devoted cargo biker. Thank you Sara for
the inspiration. Biking has changed my life and magnified our joy.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
NATO Briefing: Countering Terrorism
The essence of NATO's role in the fight against terrorism is protecting people. NATO offers a unique range of assets to the international community in the fight against terrorism. First, it is a permanent consultation forum that can transform discussions into collective decision. Second, it can turn decisions into effective action, which can be backed up by an unparalleled military capability. Third, NATO is part of an impressive network of cooperative relationships with many partners.


text:
I have a green background picture with some shadows. I would like to use it as a mask so I can place it on background with any color (e.g. red or pink) and get the same style of shadows.
I tried converting it to grayscale and changing opacity to 20%, but this resulted in a lot darker image.
I am using this on a webpage where admin can set template color. Then I am using something like this in CSS:
background: #557d0d url("img/background.png") center center;
Using Gimp 2.8.6 on Ubuntu.


text:
WASHINGTON (CH) – In a bold effort to improve the educational fortunes of students who perform at academic levels significantly below the average of their peers, Congress has mandated a minimum grade to be assigned to each student in each course taught at any school in the country. Starting in September, it shall be unlawful for any teacher, professor, or instructor charged with assigning course grades to assign to any student a grade lower than C-.
Sponsors of the Fair Academic Standards Act decry the injustice that occurs each time a student earns a low grade, such as a D or an F. "It's impossible for students with 'D's and 'F's on their transcripts to succeed as they deserve in life," remarked Sen. Bernie Franken, an Independent from Elitia. "This law ensures that no American will ever again suffer that hardship."
Opponents of the Act worry that the requirement of a minimum grade will prompt schools to refuse to enroll students whose academic preparation or skills aren't yet sufficient to enable them actually to earn good grades.
Sen. Paul Rand, an outspoken opponent of the bill, admits that 'D's and 'F's are poor grades that are not likely to win good jobs for students that have many such grades on their transcripts. Sen. Rand argues, however, that the Act will steer schools away from enrolling less-prepared students and, as a consequence, deny these very students the opportunity to acquire the education that will enable them in the future to perform better in the classroom. "It's an unintended bad consequence of Sen. Franken's good intentions," suggests Sen. Rand.
Sen. Franken and other supporters of the Act disagree. "I can show you several studies, by prominent professors of education at Ivy League universities, that make clear that this Act will in no way diminish schools' willingness to enroll all the students who seek enrollment," said Sen. Franken. "Opponents of this Act, frankly, are simply indifferent to the plight of academically challenged students and wish to deny to these students the benefits that are enjoyed by their more-talented classmates. My colleagues and I merely wish to ensure that these benefits are spread more equitably. It's the fair thing to do."
Sen. Rand responds by insisting that grades should accurately reflect each student's actual performance in class. He says that the minimum-grade requirement, to the extent that it doesn't simply cause academically challenged students to be kept from enrolling in school, will result in report cards and school transcripts that are full of "lies" – grades that do not reflect each student's actual performance. Sen. Rand worries that graduate schools and employers will be obliged to find other ways, beside grades, to assess the qualifications of students who apply for admission or for jobs. He worries that these other ways will be less accurate and more arbitrary than are course grades as these are currently assigned.
"That accusation is typical of Sen. Rand and his ilk," alleges Paula Krueger, the influential columnist. "Sen. Rand is bought and paid for by rich and privileged elites who know that a more fair distribution of school grades will threaten their and their friends' hold on this country's levers of power." Ms. Krueger shakes her head in astonishment. "I'm sure that some small subset of people actually believe the tales told by opponents of this Act, but they are clearly blinded by ideology. They're enemies not only of less-fortunate Americans, but of science itself."
Not that Ms. Krueger thinks the Act is ideal. "It's not perfect. In my view the minimum grade should be much higher. I think A-. And I'd also like to see the minimum grade indexed to grade inflation. That way all students in America, now and in the future, would be exceptionally high-achievers and very well educated. But the Act as it stands is at least a start. It's progress."
The President is expected to sign the bill at a Rose Garden ceremony on Tuesday.
UPDATE: Here's more from reporter Mark Perry.


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When school's out, many children who live in poverty no longer eat nutritious meals like they do during school as part of the free and reduced-cost school lunch program.
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) in Sacramento County has joined a coalition to promote the summer meals program, which is aiming to serve one million meals during summer 2018.
The coalition was formed by State Sen. Richard Pan, who invited Sacramento students to the State Capitol for a picnic May 22 launching the "Million Meals Summer."
"In Sacramento County, on average 1.9 million free or reduced-price lunches are served each month while school is in session," said Sen. Pan. "For so many of these children, school meals are their primary source of nutrition."
In the summertime, the number of lunches served drops to less than 10 percent of the school-year number.
"Over the last couple of years, my office has worked with a growing number of organizations to help close the gap of child nutrition," Sen. Pan said.
At the picnic, Sen. Pan, a pediatrician, reminded the children that eating healthy through the summer will get them ready to learn when school starts again.
Sen. Pan said Kim Frinzel, associate director of the California Department of Education nutrition services division, is leading the effort to set up sufficient meal sites and encourage children to attend.
"You get a great meal," Frinzel told the students. "You get to hang out with your friends. And you get to participate in fun activities. Clap if you will help us serve a million meals."
Vanessa Kenyon, EFNEP program supervisor for Sacramento and San Joaquin counties, said EFNEP will provide nutrition education training for Samuel Merritt University nurses-in-training.
"Summer meals are provided at 140 sites in Sacramento County. If the children stick around after eating, they can take part in enrichment programs. The student nurses will fulfill a portion of their service hours by sharing nutrition education resources and activities at the meal sites," Kenyon said.
The UC EFNEP program, which serves 24 counties in California, assists limited-resource families gain the knowledge and skills to choose nutritionally sound diets and improve well-being.
The United Way California Capital Region heads the coalition of community, business and state partners supporting the Million Meals Summer in Sacramento County.


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Atlanta City Councilman Aaron Watson joined Atlanta Habitat for Humanity in rebuilding and revitalizing a southeast neighborhood in Atlanta recently.
The Councilman got help from General Motors employee volunteers from the IT Innovational Center and regional office in Atlanta along with volunteers from the global headquarters in Detroit.
This project is one of 12 that will take place across the United States thanks to a $1 million grant from the General Motors Foundation to Habitat for Humanity International.


text: We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you've provided to them or that they've collected from your use of their services. You can deactivate cookies through a functionality built into your web browser. To find out more about the cookies we use, see our Privacy Policy.


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Amoeba (pronounced ameba, or in the case of Americans, mbmbmbmb) is a highly respected organism of the Protista Kingdom. It part of the genius genus Protozoa, baby.[Citation not needed at all; thank you very much]
These red haired radical Amoeba dudes may be described as having the appearance of very thin, membranous grape-flavored Jell-O. They often have thin membranous appendages that are used for moving their lazy asses around. However, when they do move, they are able to do so faster than Patrick Beal, and he is one fast mother trucker (i.e. Christopher Reeve in his current state).
Amoeba is a genus that includes species such as Amoebaius Gladiatorius Maximus, known for its ability to beat the fucking crap out of almost any other species; and Amoebaius Jesus Christorae, known for its ability to resurrect itself 3 days after fatal attacks, as well as saving other members of its species from imminent Amoeba Hell.
Amoebidae is a family that includes the Amoeba Davis, Sr., the father who works part-time to simply support his fellow family members; Amoeba Davis, Jr., who is currently stuck on a seaweed and considering whether to smoke it or not; Mrs. Amoeba Davis, who is subtly showing her sexy jelly-like body to male Amoeba, and Ms. Amoeba David, who is basically doing the same crap.
Doctor Ameobus Amoeba was the initial person to discover the existence of these drunk, jelly-like creatures in the year 1392, using a powerful electron microscope. He observed the movements and structures of these small creatures, comprehending how they exhibited the basic functions of life seen in many creatures (including the inferior homo sapiens species). Seeing the utter intelligence of these creatures after testing them for response to stimuli, Doctor Ameobus Amoeba decided to name these creatures after his best friend, Bob. Bob, however, refused to accept the credit for the naming, and thus the pair decided to think of a random name which they would both use. After 38 years of deliberation, Bob shouted "Eureka! Amoeba!" Doctor Ameobus Amoeba, according to records, claimed that Eureka "was already used by some fool in order to discover density or some smack like that", and that they should call it Amoeba, as that is "a very original name that I have never heard used before".
By 1845, a scientist named Stephen Hawking was already on his way to a wheelchair after discovering the presence of genes in Amoeba. Once in a wheelchair, Hawking observed the AMoeba closer and noted down the results of his experiments.
In 2034, a famous scientist by the name of Isaac Oldton compiled all of the information written by the prestigious scientists studying Amoeba. He published these results in the scientific magazine "Science That We Don't Give A Flying Fuck About Weekly", on March 18th, 2034. This research was received with praise and recognition, winning Oldton a Nobel Prize for "Most Useless Compilation of Scientific Babble of the Past Decade". The results and observations are discussed in the next section.
Amoeba are often famed for their intriguing anatomies. Such are considered to be famous for one particular part, although there will be discussion of all major parts of an amoeba. The Amoeba was actually discovered to be one cell containing a nucleus (i.e. the brain of a cell), organelles (miniature organs, just like inferior humans have), and other mechanisms controlling the cell's electrochemical responses. The most prominent part of the Amoeba cell is, of course, one of its 'protrusions' - this protrusion, often called the Amoebadickus phalangae, resembles a human dick, except it used for more purposes than a human uses it for.
This particular protrusion, like a human dick, controls the cell's movements and communication skills. The Amoeba cells stick their phalangae inside of other Amoeba in order to transport electrochemical signals to other Amoeba (their form of communication) to alert them of coming danger, food supply, etc. It is also used for ejection of harmful wastes from the cell's body (the accumulation of which is consumed by the Amoeba form of human perverts). Amoebaic usage of this big protrusion is normally defined by experts as the factor equating this species to be superior to most other species, especially the homo sapiens.
The amoeba is remarkable for its very large genetically determined member. It is widely known that African Americans emerged from early forms of Amoeba, and eventually developed traits such as murdering, eating watermelon, eating fried chicken, killing, bringing down the white man, drinking Kool-Aid, and murdering. Amoeba exhibit similarities in the small food particles they eat (which are determined to be early genetic ancestors of watermelons, fried chicken, and Kool-Aid), and the species they kill (all underwater, aquarian species that eventually developed into the white man). Thus, Amoeba have been decisively determined to be a so-called 'cool' species of mammalian insect animals.
Amoeba in society[edit]
Amoeba are very prevalent in modern society. Their main purpose is to piss off humans because they are far superior to humans. In fact, Amoeba lack a large amount of the diseases and causes of death that humans experience, causing large amounts of jealousy between the two species. Humans acknowledge that Amoeba, like other normal species, do not kill their own members; however, humans continue to kill off their own because: 1) they are masochistic, sadistic bastards, and 2) they really just don't care anymore. Although the mental war between Amoeba and humans will persist until one of these two species gets wiped off of Earth (preferably, and most likely the humans), it is clear that Amoeba will always maintain a genetic superiority over humans.


text:
The FanWing aircraft concept has been around for a while but this is the first time we've seen working models. It gets rid of the propeller and adopts a rotating cylinder for propulsion. The look reminds us of a combine harvester and in a way it does reap the air, pulling the craft through the sky. We're not holding our breath for the decommission of jet propulsion in the wake of this method, but we'd love to see some fun-loving death from above whenever you can get your own off the ground. Check out the video clips after the break to see, and hear, this in action.
[Thanks I]


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Shereen Hindi-Garabet
Shereen Hindi Garabet graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology, with a Minor in Sociology from Cal State Northridge University in 2001. Shereen has worked in Applied Behavioral Analysis for seven years. Her experience as a Behavioral Therapist was very demanding, which led her to emphasize with the need that Parents have, in searching for creative ways to stimulate their children with the right toys, and facilities that help their Kids to cope with the sensory stimulation that they need to thrive. Shereen's passion for helping children with learning disabilities, and a lack of educational facilities with a focus on kids with special needs in the area, led her to open a private learning center called "The Cedar Learning Center". Where children with Special needs such as Aspergers, and ADHD, can get the Personalized Academic Enrichment, and help with Social skills they require to get the same opportunities as everyone else gets. Five years later Shereen, along with her sister-in-law Monique, decided that they were ready to explore new business opportunities, at the same time doing what they love most, and that's helping children with special needs and all children!
Shereen's family is the driving force that encourages her love and compassion for others. Her husband's nephew has Autism, and his personal improvement has been an inspiration and motivation for Shereen to provide a fun and loving environment for all children to call their second home. Knowing that she has the opportunity to help children on the Spectrum, and all children in her community to achieve their very best, and have fun is a dream come true for her and her family!


text:
CHARLOTTE (AP)- A grand jury has declined to indict a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer on a voluntary manslaughter charge in the shooting death of a former Florida A&M football player.
Randall Kerrick was charged in the September death of Jonathan Ferrell, who was unarmed. The state Attorney General's office presented evidence to a grand jury Tuesday.
While the grand jury decided not to indict the officer on the voluntary manslaughter charge, it asked the prosecutor to submit a lesser charge.
The Attorney General's office issued a statement late Tuesday saying it would resubmit the case to a full grand jury after learning that the panel that heard the case Tuesday was less than a full panel.
It is unclear whether the attorney general would again seek voluntary manslaughter or a lesser charge.


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Press Release: Placer DA warns against construction fraud, 10/14/09
October 14, 2009
Bradford R. Fenocchio
District Attorney
10810 Justice Center Drive, Suite 240
Roseville, California 95678
For Immediate Release
Date: October 14, 2009
Art Campos
Public Information Officer
Scott Owens
Assistant District Attorney
The Placer County District Attorney's Office is cautioning victims of the recent 49 Fire in Auburn to be aware of unlicensed contractors who offer or submit bids to repair or rebuild homes or structures.
It is against state law for any person to do contracting work totaling more than $500 in labor and materials without having a valid contractor's license, unless that person has been granted an exemption, the District Attorney's Office stated.
Sixty-three homes were destroyed during the August 30 fire that spread through nearly 350 acres in North Auburn, off Highway 49.
Because the 49 Fire was proclaimed a state of emergency by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, any violation by an unlicensed contractor for repair work could be prosecuted as a felony.
Assistant District Attorney Scott Owens said his office "must protect against further victimization" of those citizens who lost homes or sustained damage.
"This will include prosecution of unlicensed contractors who prey upon the unwary," Owens said.
The Placer County District Attorney's Office will partner with the Contractors State Licensing Board (CSLB), which is planning to conduct sweep and sting operations in the Auburn area where homes were destroyed or damaged.
"We have posted signs throughout the burn area warning the homeowners about unlicensed contractors," CSLB Registrar Steve Sands said. "If our investigators see people doing work, we will talk to them and find out if they are properly licensed. If they are not legitimate, they could be cited or arrested."
Those caught contracting without a license in a declared disaster area could face fines up to $10,000 or imprisonment for up to three years.
The CSLB is warning citizens and businesses not to hire the first contractor who comes along.
"Take your time and protect yourself against con artists who will take your money and run - or (against) incompetent contractors who will perform shoddy work," Sands said. "Hire only licensed contractors and check their qualifications with the board."
Licensed contractors are required to carry workers' compensation and bonds to protect home or business owners if something goes wrong, Sands said.
Contractors working on a job - from debris removal to rebuilding - totaling $500 or more for labor and materials must be licensed by the CSLB.
To become licensed, a contractor must pass a licensing examination, verify at least four years of journey-level experience and carry a license bond. As of July 1, 2005, all new licensed contractors have also had to pass a criminal background check.
The CSLB urges consumers to follow a series of tips when dealing with a building contractor.
These include hiring only licensed contractors and asking to see the license, verifying the contractor's license by checking online and by not rushing into hiring the first contractor who submits a bid.
The CSLB also cautions consumers not to pay more than 10% down or $1,000, whichever is less, and to not pay cash or let the payments get ahead of the work.
Consumers should always get three bids, check references and then get a written contract. Consumers should contact the CSLB if they have a complaint against a contractor.
More information regarding the status or hiring of a contractor or regarding how to file a complaint against a contractor is available by visiting the CSLB website or by calling the CSLB at 800-321-2752.


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Date: February 1, 2013
Publication Date of Announcement: March 1, 2013
Estimated Application Due Date: May 15, 2013
Estimated Award Date: September 30, 2013
Estimated Start Date: September 30, 2013
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), intends to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to solicit applications for Clinical Sites for the NINDS Stroke Trials Network (U10) . The goal of this initiative is to harness multidisciplinary stroke expertise to work together in an efficient manner to conduct exploratory NINDS-sponsored phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of stroke with the goal to quickly move potential treatments into larger, confirmatory phase 3 trials. The initiative will provide support to develop, promote and conduct high quality, multi-site clinical trials in stroke focused on key interventions in prevention, treatment, and recovery with the objective to have a balanced portfolio between all three approaches. Exploratory phase 2 and confirmatory phase 3 clinical trials, as well as biomarker-validation studies that are immediately preparatory to trials, will be coordinated through separate Data and Clinical Coordinating Centers (DCC and CCC). Efficiency will be encouraged through the use of master trial agreements and a central IRB. Leaders drawn from both the clinical and basic stroke science communities at the sites will contribute to the development of network clinical trial applications for peer review, as well as planning for execution of applications coming from outside of the network, including trials that result from a Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between the NINDS and an Industry partner. The Network will also be uniquely poised to rapidly collaborate with other existing networks, such as the NINDS Neurological Treatment Trials Network (NETT), or International Consortia to conduct larger, definitive trials of promising interventions for the treatment of stroke. See http://www.ninds.nih.gov/find_people/ninds/OSPP/Stroke-Research-Priorities-Meeting-2012.htm for a description of the Stroke Priorities for this network.
This Notice is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and competitive research programs.
The FOA is expected to be published in Spring 2013 with an expected application due date in May 2013.
This FOA will utilize the U10 activity code. Details of the planned FOA are provided below.
The NINDS Stroke Trials Network will utilize Cooperative Agreements (U10) to support clinical recruiting sites in the Stroke Trials Network for up to 5 years. Each funded site in the network will have access to stroke patients and have demonstrated their ability to enroll patients into stroke trials. Each site will also have strong collaborative relationships between Vascular Neurology, Emergency Medicine, Interventional Neuroradiology, Neurosurgery, NeuroIntensive care, Neuroimaging, Stroke Rehabilitation, and Pediatric Neurology in order to ensure a commitment to offer every eligible patient the opportunity to participate in a trial conducted through the Network. In addition, network sites will include a stroke research training program. All network sites will be committed to increase the value of clinical research data through an aggressive data sharing plan.
Please direct all inquiries to:
Scott Janis, Ph.D.
Program Director
Office of Clinical Research
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Room 2170, MSC 9525
6001 Executive Blvd.
Bethesda, MD 20892-9525
Telephone: (301) 496-9135
Fax: (301) 410-1080
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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The email address for the Alliance is alliance at mysticalpragmatics dot net.
My friend Pär, who designed this website, died suddenly on 15th October 2014, before he could finish programming this footer. He was one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, feeling passionately about the aims of the Alliance.
This website is now being developed in his memory, trusting that we could help others who are seeking to consummate the sacred marriage of science and mysticism, the greatest challenge of our times.
My deepest sympathy to his family and friends. May he now truly rest in peace.


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The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy is an American action/adventure television program produced for ABC and originally broadcast from November 4, 1981 to May 2, 1986. It stars Lee Majors, Douglas Barr, and Heather Thomas. Majors and Barr are the only two actors to appear in all 112 episodes of the series. Thomas appeared in every episode of the show except for one in the first season.


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Seaside Heights Marks 100 Years with Party of the Century
It's withstood two major boardwalk calamities, a superstorm, and even Snooki. Now, after two disaster-interrupted false starts, Seaside Heights marks 100 years of existence with a party in the center of town and optimism for its second century.
Thursday night, December 19, Hemingway's Cafe on the Boulevard will be the epicenter of what spokesman Mike Graichen characterizes as a night to remember, by any measurement. "Hopefully," he mused, "it's the start of a great new year and a great summer coming up."
Doors open, and revelry begins, at 6 PM.
Long in the planning stage, it appeared for a while as though the celebration was snake-bitten. It was originally scheduled for late fall 2012 - and derailed by Superstorm Sandy. Organizers rescheduled to fall 2013 - and the boardwalk fire scuttled the plans again.
This time, said Graichin, nothing stands in the way of their tribute to the past and their hopes for the future. "After Sandy, which really put us back, and the fire," Graichin observed, "it's amazing what a community can do, working together. Just amazing."
They're supplying a one-hour open bar and raffling off gifts through the evening, with live entertainment throughout. Each $25 admission goes toward the construction of a vivid new fountain for the borough's gateway-type entrance.
But the party is only the beginning. The borough is also staging its first Christmas parade this Saturday, with Santa landing in a helicopter to hand out gifts to children.
Seaside Heights was carved out of what was then Dover Township and Berkeley Township, and incorporated in February 1913. A Philadelphia company with a vision for an amusement mecca built a covered pier that included an ornate carousel two years later.
The company's plans dried up and they sold to another developer, but the carousel became an icon that lasted until the boardwalk fire this past Labor Day weekend. The intensity of that wind-blown conflagration was matched in its history only by a similar one in 1955.
The completion of the original Toms River Bridge, now the Mathis Bridge, in 1914, fueled tourism by adding an access route directly over Barnegat Bay from the mainland.
We can probably attribute the global influence of "Jersey Shore" to the magnetism of the gang's house and its now-famous garage door. Pehaps it turned a post-storm visit into a mission for Prince Harry. And of course, since Sandy, Governor Christie practically turned it into his easternmost branch office.
Lest you think that the "Jersey Shore" crew pioneered Seaside's TV exposure, you might recall the ATP professional volleyball tours that migrated to the beach for many years. The boardwalk also provided the backdrop for Bon Jovi's "In and Out of Love" video in 1985. The soap opera One Life to Live used Seaside as a scene-setter several years ago, and Artie Lange was a regular during the filming of Artie Lange's Beer League.


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The abridged version of this column appears here courtesy of Cosmetics & Toiletries magazine
Every once in a while, readers ask how topics are selected for this Cosmetics & Toiletries magazine column. This time, the idea came from an e-mail inquiring what COSMOS standards are. Previous columns have discussed Canadian Natural Health Products regulations but have steered clear of the natural and organic debate, although this author previously published an article1 that debates animal versus vegetable ingredients.
COSMOS is an independent effort in the European Union (EU) aimed to outline organic and natural standards, with draft guidelines published in November 2008. But how is it different than other standards? This calls for a review of the various natural and organic standards for the personal care industry and how they have evolved.
What is Natural?
According to the author, when he first began to learn during the Dark Ages, the elements of earth, air, fire and water were understood to be natural; thus everything made from them was considered natural. Later, industry expert Ken Klein stated that anything made from the first 92 elements of the periodic table are natural, and that no man-made elements should be used in products claiming to be natural; however, this philosophy did not seem a sufficient answer for what marketers where claiming.
An Internet investigation retrieved several meanings for the term natural, among which were: being present in or produced by nature; i.e., a natural pearl; being inherent or not acquired; not being produced or changed artificially; and not being altered, treated or disguised.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not define natural in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act or any other FDA regulation; the closest definition2 for natural personal care products was established in Canada as a regulated category called Natural Health Products. This regulation, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2004, defines natural health products (NHPs) as: vitamins and minerals, herbal remedies, homeopathic medicines, traditional medicine such as traditional Chinese medicine, probiotics, and other products like amino acids and essential fatty acids.
While these materials are found in nature, Canada took it a step further to describe acceptable substances as being synthetic duplicates of those materials listed above. Synthetic duplicates are substances that share identical chemical structures and pharmacological properties with their natural counterparts; an example of such is vitamin E.
A semi-synthetic substance may also be acceptable as an NHP, provided that it shares identical chemical structures and pharmacological properties with its natural counterpart. Semi-synthetic substances are produced by processes that chemically change a related starting material that has been extracted or isolated from a plant or a plant material, an alga, a fungus or a non-human animal material. An example of such is ginsenosides, which are produced from the starting compound betulafolienetriol.
In the end, whatever marketing deems natural is natural; the critical inference is that consumers believe products marketed as natural are safer than products that are not marketed as natural. This has given rise to an increase in use of the word organic within the cosmetic industry.
Recalling studies from his youth, the author notes that the term organic originally referred to the chemistry of the carbon atom. Then in 1973, an organization called the California Certified Organic Farmer was formed to promote organic farming in California, instilling in the public a new sense of the word organic. This group became one of the first to certify products with an organic seal of approval on the label. In 1979, the state made the organic labeling of foods a law subject to their controls.
In 1980, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) published its "Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming,"3 in which organic farming was described as a "production system that avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetically compounded fertilizers, pesticides, growth regulators and livestock feed additives. To the maximum extent feasible, organic farming systems rely upon crop rotations, crop residues, animal manures, legumes, green manures, off-farm organic wastes, mechanical cultivation, mineral-bearing rocks and aspects of biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and tilth, to supply plant nutrients and to control insects, weeds and other pests."4
Reasons for interest in this system included:
- Increased cost and uncertain availability of energy and chemicals; Increased resistance of weeds and insects to pesticides;
- Decline in soil productivity from erosion and accompanying loss of organic matter and plant nutrients;
- Pollution of surface waters with agricultural chemicals and sediment;
- Destruction of wildlife, bees and beneficial insects by pesticides;
- Hazards to human and animal health from pesticides and feed additives;
- Detrimental effects of agricultural chemicals on food quality;
- Depletion of finite reserves of concentrated plant nutrients (e.g., phosphate rock); and
- Decrease in numbers of farms, particularly family-type farms, and disappearance of localized and direct marketing systems.5
By the late 1980s, a number of private and state-run certifying bodies were operating in the United States. Standards varied among these entities, causing trouble in commerce. Certifiers often refused to recognize products certified as organic by other agents, which was a problem particularly for organic livestock producers seeking feed, and for processors trying to source ingredients. In addition, a number of well-publicized incidents of fraud began to undermine the credibility of the organic industry.
In an effort to curb these problems, the organic community pursued federal legislation. The result was the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, which mandated the creation of the National Organic Program (NOP) and the passage of uniform organic standards. These standards were incorporated into NOP regulations.6 Implementation of the regulations began on April 21, 2001, and all organic certifiers, producers, processors and handlers were required to be in full compliance by Oct. 21, 2002.7
Beyond federal legislation, the California Organic Products Act (COPA) was signed into law in 2003, and beginning Jan. 1, 2003, all products sold in California containing a total of less than 70% organic ingredients were no longer allowed to use the word organic on the front labeling panel. Later in 2003, the State Assembly repealed the non-food provision of the COPA but in the end, cosmetics remained a part of the Act.
With the growth of nationwide food stores based on certified organic foods, interest in the organic market has spread to cosmetics and other personal care products. From this interest, several groups have emerged with varying standards for organic certification; most use a seal that appears on product labels to indicate organic certification. Following are some of the major bodies, as well as their requirements. This is not a comprehensive list but it will provide an overview.
National Organic Program (NOP, United States): Within this program are four levels of organic claims for foods. The NOP defines the claims that can be used for agricultural products by their content, excluding water and salt. 100% Organic: For this claim, 100% of the ingredients in the product must be certified organic products and in this case, the USDA Organic seal may be used.
- Organic: To make this claim, 95% of the materials in the product must be certified organic products; the same USDA Organic seal may be used in this instance.
- Made with organic ingredients: For this label claim, 70% to 94.99% of the product's ingredients must be certified organic; in this case, use of the USDA Organic seal is not permitted.
- Contains organic: This label claim requires less than 70% of certified organic ingredients in a product and also cannot bear the USDA Organic seal.
Natural Products Association (NPA, United States): This organization was founded in 1936 and was principally concerned with dietary supplements. The group represents more than 10,000 retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors of natural products, including foods, dietary supplements, and health and beauty aids. On May 1, 2008, the group issued its certification program for personal care products. In order to display the NPA seal, a product must meet the following requirements:
- Contain at least 95% truly natural ingredients or ingredients that are derived from natural sources;
- Contain no ingredients linked with potentially suspected human health risks;
- Not be processed in ways that significantly or adversely alter the purity of its natural ingredients; Include ingredients derived from a purposeful, renewable/plentiful source found in nature (flora, fauna, mineral);
- Be minimally processed and avoid the use of synthetic or harsh chemicals so as not to dilute the material's purity; and
- Should contain non-natural ingredients only where viable natural alternative ingredients are unavailable, and only when they pose absolutely no potentially suspected human health risks.
The Natural Products Association also has published8 a list including 839 ingredients that it considers meets these requirements.
Cosmetics Organic and Natural Standard (COSMOS, EU): As noted above, COSMOS is an independent effort in the EU, with its draft published in November 2008. This standard was developed from collaborations between working groups including: the Instituto per la Certificazione Etica e Ambientale (ICEA in Italy); the Federation of German Industries and Trading Firms for Pharmaceuticals, Health Care Goods, Dietary Supplements and Personal Hygiene products (BDIH in Germany); Bioforum in Belgium; the French Professional Association of the Ecological and Organic Cosmetics, and a French certification organization (Cosmebio/Ecocert in France); and an environmental charity promoting sustainable, organic farming and championing human health (The Soil Association in the UK). The COSMOS draft is available at www.cosmos-standard.org.
These standards describe five categories of ingredients: water, minerals, physically processed agro-ingredients, chemically processed agro-ingredients and synthetic materials. The draft details what materials are and are not allowed. It is interesting to note the chemical reactions that are and are not allowed (see COSMOS Chemical Reactions).
This Steinberg column, entitled "Organic and Natural: Caveat Emptor," is available in full on Cosmetics & Toiletries magazine's Web site.
Send e-mail to: [email protected].
- DC Steinberg, Ingredient Review: Animal vs. Vegetable, A Continuing Controversy, Skin Inc. 11(3) 58–62 (Apr 1999)
- Natural Health Products Regulations, Health Canada Web site, available at www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/prodnatur/legislation/acts-lois/prodnatur/index-eng.php (Accessed Feb 4, 2009)
- Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming, USDA Web site, available at http://nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/USDAOrgFarmRpt.pdf (Accessed Feb 4, 2009)
- Ibid Ref 3, pp 13 5. Ibid Ref 3, pp 16–17 6. National Organic Program, USDA Web site, available at www.ams.usda.gov/nop (Accessed Feb 4, 2009)
- ATTRA Web site, National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, available at www.attra.org (Accessed Feb 4, 2009)
- Illustrative "Positive List" of Ingredients, Natural Products Association Web site, available at www.naturalproductsassoc.org/site/DocServer/Natural_Ingredients_List.pdf?docID=7341 (Accessed Feb 4, 2009)
- Round One Legal Victory for Organic Consumers and Dr. Bronner's against "Organic Cheater" Personal Care Brands and Certifiers, Organic Consumers Association Web site, available at www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15126.cfm (Accessed Feb 4, 2009)
- 100 Percent Pure Web Site, available at www.100percentpure.com/fruitpigmentedintro.html (Accessed Feb 4, 2009)
David C. Steinberg founded Steinberg & Associates, a consulting firm based in Plainsboro, New Jersey, USA, in 1995. He also was co-founder of the graduate program in cosmetic sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he lectured for 18 years on the chemistry of cosmetic ingredients. He has more than 35 years of experience in marketing, technical service and regulatory affairs in the personal care industry, and was president of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists in 1991. He is a frequent speaker worldwide on cosmetic regulations, cosmetic preservation, sunscreen chemistry and the chemistry of cosmetic ingredients.


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Welcome to Personnel Travel Consultants
We pride ourselves on giving our clients individualized attention.
Why use an employment agency that specializes in Travel?
Whether you are currently employed or searching for a new assignment, finding that next position can be time consuming and disheartening. Having an employment agency that specializes in your industry makes the inevitable challenge more manageable. Personnel Travel Consultants and Temps have been placing people in travel since 1990. We know the services and support you need in order to progress in your career. Personnel Travel Consultants seeks to join your expertise with ours in making sure that the Travel Industry is always staffed with the best possible agents for the best employers.
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- Welcome to Daytrotter
- Present/Infant
- Coming Up
- Subdivision
- The Atom
The waters are warm for those just now deciding that they want to try on their issue-oriented, politically minded pants, to see if they fit right in all the right spots. It's ripe for folks to just drop the jaws and chatter their way to the moon and back about things that they wouldn't have dared to not all that long ago – the pundit is in all of the masses. It's a fashionable time to have a cause, to have an opinion about sub-prime mortgage predicaments, the magically shrinking effect of the U.S. dollar, the withering sense of security, the abundant lack of foresight of a government dedicated to taking this country backward a couple decades, the nothingness that universal human rights and freedoms have the occasion to be viewed – as they pertain to certain people and groups – and a presidential election that is being rammed down our throats as the most pivotal of all-time.
We're talking about a time when Star Trek's George Takei married his long-time partner in California over the weekend, thanks to some about-time-gay-rights-legislation in Sir Arnold's state. We're talking about a time when you can hear of junior high and elementary school students consciously thinking about carbon footprints and emissions, when there is awareness of the planet as a living (or dying thing) before people are accepting their own mortalities. It's planet first, issues first and self-serving second for more people now than at any other time in history. All of this is very fresh and green. Then we get to thinking about Ani DiFranco. She has been busying herself with these very same thoughts in different models and guises for quite some time, giving them their own fingerprints, while putting hers all over them.
The woman – who turns 38 years old this Tuesday, a Virgo tried and true – has identified herself as a feminist and scrappy marshal for the sorts of injustices and liberties that are deemed imperative and essentially birthrights and has, in turn, been identified as an iconic feminist by everyone and their sister for nearly the last 20 years. She is legendary for fighting for the things she believes in with her silvery, acoustic streams of piping hot emotions that get the raging rapids treatment – for fighting for the exact way to differentiate poetically between true love and less than true love. She is a patriot. When she was performing here in Davenport this summer, she stood at the microphone at center stage of the gorgeous Capitol Theatre and rocked back and forth through a spoken word piece.
She looked like Sugar Ray Leonard of Floyd Maywether, in baggy parachute pants that had straps of cloth slapping against her legs as she moved, poking at the air for effect and passing out declarations of admiration for the ribbons of prairie and the purple mountain majesties of this country that have no connections to the lobbyists and the opportunists that she calls out as dirty players. She looked as if she had stars in her eyes – in spite of the disgust that has been caused by all of the donkeys – and she was there, speaking as the strong, opinionated, woman of passion that everyone's always known her to be.
She speaks the way that she sings – with conviction and emphasis. She plays her poor guitar as if she was chasing something down, racing her hands across the strings like a devil on a time crunch, getting as much done in as short of an amount of time as possible. It's a rushing terror that translates into a sense of impending immediacy – as if tomorrow isn't necessarily a guarantee and even if it's coming, there's almost a promise that it's going to reveal a loss of some of the warm feelings that you've grown to appreciate and accumulate. DiFranco is a smiling and snarling proponent for equality that everyone can enjoy and for long-lasting good days that involve holding whatever hand (whatever child, whatever person) you find you cherish most, hoping that it cherishes you the same amount. She'd love to just throw up a piece sign and hope that it translates. She's been trying for a long time now. It's the devotion of an icon.


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Weaving or knitting the yarn in a particular manner, so that more yarn per unit area is achieved, improves the luminance of the EL yarn. (Dr Tilak Dias, Head of the WLIC)Woo-hoo, crocheters get ready! Who needs light-up hooks when it's the yarn that lights up?
I want to crochet some of this NOW.
Quoted from here:
Dr Tilak Dias, Head of the WLIC, said: "At the moment the EL yarn we have developed is less flexible than conventional yarns. But it is more flexible than current optical fibres that are incorporated within fabrics to provide illumination. EL yarn can be easily incorporated into a knitted or woven fabric and the resultant active illuminating fabric provides illumination when it is powered. The luminance of a single strand of the EL yarn is greater than that of photoluminescent glow yarns, which are currently used in some high visibility applications."


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Dialogic® JCT Media Boards can be used by developers to provide cost effective, scalable, high-density communications applications. The applications include those requiring digital network interfaces as well as multimedia resources, such as voice and software-based speech recognition or fax in a single Personal Computer (PC) slot. These boards offer a rich set of advanced features and support Digital Signal Processor (DSP) technology, Continuous Speech Processing (CSP) technology, and industry-standard PCI or PCI Express bus and CT Bus technologies.
CSP technology:
the DSP-based solution optimized for speech recognition — enables a friendly user interface and seamless integration of speech recognition software from leading speech technology vendors. CSP reduces system latency, increases recognition accuracy, and improves overall system response time for high-density speech solutions.
Onboard DSP:
based fax and support for software-based speech recognition lets developers maximize the number of boards in the system for multimedia communications applications, such as web-enabled call centers, voice portals, unified messaging, or speech-enabled Interactive Voice Response (IVR). The option to use voice coders, such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and G.726, provides the capability to build unified messaging solutions while extending existing legacy messaging systems. In addition, Dialogic ® Global Call Software facilitates global deployment to meet the growing needs of your business.
For more information about Dialogic, Dialogic PCI Media Boards and / or Dialogic JCT Media Boards contact firstname.lastname@example.com or call (800) 955-6082.
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Egyptians targeted with blasphemy charges
CAIRO: The pale, young Christian woman sat handcuffed in the courtroom, accused of insulting Islam while teaching history of religions to fourth-graders. A team of Islamist lawyers with long beards sang in unison, "All except the Prophet Muhammad."
The case against Dimyana Abdel-Nour in southern Egypt's ancient city of Luxor began when parents of three of her pupils claimed that their children, aged 10, complained their teacher showed disgust when she spoke of Islam in class. According to the parents, Abdel-Nour, 24, told the children that Pope Shenouda, who led the Egyptian Coptic Church until his death last year, was better than the Prophet Muhammad.
Blasphemy charges were not uncommon in Egypt under the now-ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak's regime, but there has been a surge in such cases in recent months, according to rights activists. The trend is widely seen as a reflection of the growing power and confidence of Islamists, particularly the ultraconservative Salafis.
"Salafis are the engineers of these stories," said Abdel-Hamid Hassan, a Muslim and the head of the parents' council at the primary school where Abdel-Nour teaches. Hassan's daughter was among several students who denied any wrongdoing by Abdel-Nour.
"If the pope himself came here from the Vatican and tried to spread Christianity among us, he would fail. We learn about our religion starting from the age of 5," he said, alluding to the allegation against Abdel-Nour, since withdrawn, of "spreading Christianity."
Criminalizing blasphemy was enshrined in the country's Islamist-backed constitution that was adopted in December.
Writers, activists and even a famous television comedian have been accused of blasphemy since then. But Christians seem to be the favorite target of Islamist prosecutors. Their fragile cases — the main basis of the case against Abdel-Nour's case the testimony of children — are greeted with sympathy from courtroom judges with their own religious bias or who fear the wrath of Islamists, according to activists.
The result is a growing number of Egyptians, including many Christians, who have been convicted and sent to prison for blasphemy.
In at least one celebrated case, the offense was clearly provocative: Seven Coptic Christians living in the United States received death sentences in absentia for producing an anti-Islam film that sparked waves of protests by ultraconservative Islamists in front of U.S. embassies across the Arab world on Sept. 11, 2012.
But rights groups say the vast majority of blasphemy cases are merely attempts by Islamists to crack down on their opponents.
"Islamists are using the law to hunt down critics to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Christians are the weakest," said Medhat Klada, a Switzerland-based Coptic Christian activist whose organization Copts United tracks such cases. "The numbers of Christians implicated is unprecedented," he added.
Many believe that restrictions on freedoms are more severe under Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's first freely elected president, than during his predecessor's 29-year reign.


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Lewis and Roca LLP, headquartered in Phoenix and a Southwestern leader in representing businesses in litigation and complex real estate transactions, and Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP, a century-old Rocky Mountain firm with nationally recognized litigation and banking practices, announced today they will combine forces to create one of the largest law firms in the Western U.S.
When the firms officially join on September 1, 2013, the new 250-lawyer firm will be called Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP. With a presence in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming, the firm will maintain nine offices, including Phoenix , Denver, Las Vegas, Tucson, Reno, Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, Silicon Valley and Casper.
"Our growth into new markets is driven by our commitment to client service and our clients' interest in gaining access to legal services throughout the West," said Lewis and Roca's Managing Partner Kenneth Van Winkle. "We found a solid partner in Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons and quickly realized our growth strategies aligned. Our two firms are strong apart, and we will be even stronger together."
Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons Chairman Frederick J. Baumann said the combination was consistent with his firm's strategic plan and was fueled by clients who want access to legal counsel in markets where their businesses are growing.
"Our clients have been expanding in the Southwest region for some time and encouraged us to find an opportunity to establish a presence there," said Baumann. "With Lewis and Roca, we are partnering with a firm with an equally strong reputation in its practices and markets. Lewis and Roca not only shares our commitment to client service, but is a seamless fit strategically, culturally and professionally."
The combination will strengthen the two firms' existing national litigation practices, creating an expanded team of litigators with added experience across additional jurisdictions. It also will expand the firms' business transactional, real estate and energy practices, which will enable the new firm to advise clients on projects from creation to completion.


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These Broads Made Me Laugh in 2012
This year there was a lot of funny lady business. In fact, some may say we have peaked the maximum vagina capacity when it comes to women and comedy. Others disagree. I say you can never have enough labia laughs, and the funny women behind the year in yucks are with me on this. Let's take a gander at 2012 in videos, photos, memes, and uh, that's it. That's all comedy is now, right?
This year there was a lot of funny lady business. In fact, some may say we have peaked the maximum vagina capacity when it comes to women and comedy. Others disagree. I say you can never have enough labia laughs, and the funny women behind the year in yucks are with me on this. Let's take a gander at 2012 in videos, photos, memes, and uh, that's it. That's all comedy is now, right?
Kate McKinnon as Ellen
OK, we've known that Kate McKinnon is hilarious, but her Ellen impression was simultaneously off-the-wall and scary-good.
McKayla Maroney is Not Impressed
Gabby Douglas may have won our hearts and an Olympic gold medal, but her teammate McKayla Maroney made me cackle with her unimpressedness. She was so unimpressed, it took her to the Oval Office.
more on next page...
Phyllis Diller
She died this year, but she was a pioneer for female comedians everywhere. So, here's something from her heyday in 1969, on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Texts From Hillary
I want to believe Texts From Hillary is how our outgoing Secretary of State really is: a badass on a plane with phone access, giving people The Business.
Gay Women Will Marry Your Boyfriends
I mean, Gay Guys Will Marry Your Girlfriends was probably one of the most sound arguments for legalizing marriage equality ever, but this follow up basically doubles down on the premise.
more on next page...
Pinterest Fail
This year was definitely the year of Pinterest, the time-sucking never-ending combination of Better Homes and Gardens and Cosmo With! More! Photos! But the projects that you try from Pinterest often produce massive failures producing More! Four-Letter! Words. Thank you, Pinterest Fail for capturing our woes.
Shit Straight Girls Say to Lesbians
This meme was huge in 2011, but for whatever reason, we kept it going in 2012.
Wanda Sykes' Election Special on Logo
Wanda says it best:
more on next page...
Sandra Bullock and Chelsea Handler
Chelsea Handler received a naked, wet, verbal smackdown from funny leading lady, Sandra Bullock.
Kid Songs with Cat Power
I'm 20 years older than these kids and Cat Power still scares me.
Binders Full of Women
Remember that magical moment during that debate when Mitt Romney said, "I went to a number of women's groups and said, 'Can you help us find folks?...And they brought us whole binders full of women"? Firing Jim Leher and Big Bird was pretty entertaining in that first debate, but looking to hire women who came in binders? Come on, Team Romney. That was an internet meme waiting to happen.
more on next page...
Poehler and Fey: Golden Globes Duo
Not only are Tina Fey and Amy Poehler having stellar seasons on 30 Rock and Parks & Recreation, respectively, but they're even entertaining in a commercial for an awards show. They can do no wrong. Don't question it!
Hey Girl, It's Rachel Maddow
I don't know if it's so healthy to be so in love with Rachel Maddow, but, look, we are, OK?! Gah, get out of my room!
Nurse Jackée
Paging Dr. Maaaaaarryyyy
more on next page...
Tig Notaro's groundbreaking performance
Earlier this year, Tig Notaro (a famously funny but non-controversial comic) opened up and told us EVERYTHING. Her set turned into one of the most lauded performances of the year, and you can listen to it here.
Real Housewives of Disney
You don't have to watch any of the real Real Housewives to love Kristen Wiig as hot-mess Cinderella.
Also, this:


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Educators as Authors Chairperson: Ms. Dee Scallan
See www.lareading.org site for forms for submitting entries.
1. To develop and disseminate guidelines and timelines and publish an Anthology annually.
2. Collect and report content results in the designated categories.
In July 2005, Mrs. Jennifer Kelly was awarded as a state winner in the Educators as Author at the Louisiana Reading Associaton's Leadership Banquet. The NELRC is very proud to have Jennifer as one of their own. Way to go Jen!!!!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
The following writings were written during the "Writing Inspirations in the Gardens" at Biedenharn in Monroe, Louisiana at the NELRC's Spring Meeting and submitted by the authors to Kathy O'Neal for publication on the NELRC website.
Bird Sounds
Water Fall
Sweet Smell of Outdoors
Flowers Blooming Pink and Purple
Arching Trees
Bending Downward
Smell of Grass
Freshly Cut
Cool Wind Blowing
Oh! So Nice
What Beautiful God Creations?
By Joyce Powell
Monroe City School System
Green plants & Flowers everywhere.Ā
Follow me home, you will find none there.
As I sat on the bench in the shade, looking across the lawn at the beautiful water fountain, I feel as if I am floating on a crystal mountain.
Coming back to reality.
I realize in order to have a garden like this, Somebody must help me!
By Leah Biley
Ouachita Parish School System
Fragrant and colorful
Lovely to behold
Our link to nature
Worlds to unfold
Eternal and everlasting
Rare and mysterious
Peggy Horton
Morehouse Parish School System
Last Updated 8/3/12 2:17 pm by Kathy O'Neal
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Customized Promotion Gift Silicone Bracelet Injection Moulding Silicone Products Liquid Silicone Rubber Molding
silicone rubber (LSR) molding is a thermoset process that mixes a
two-component compound together, which is then heat cured in the mold
with a platinum catalyst to produce a final part. LSR parts are formed
through an injection-molding process similar to that of conventional
plastic injection molding with one major difference - the material
delivery system is cooled and the mold is heated.
Final LSR parts
are strong and elastic with excellent thermal, chemical and electrical
resistance. They maintain their physical properties at extreme
temperatures and can withstand sterilization. LSR parts are also
biocompatible, so they work very well for products that have skin
contact. Those benefits lend themselves well to automotive, medical and
food appliance industries, typically in the form of seals, gaskets,
valves and cables.
The LSR molding process starts with proper part design.
Anyone familiar with designing parts for injection molding should find
designing an LSR part to be similar. However, the shrink rate on LSR is
fairly high, and the material also tends to flash very easily during
molding. Protomold helps mitigate challenges related to high shrink
rates by planning appropriate tolerances and incorporating additional
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thin wall sections with minimal challenges and is accommodating to
variations in wall sections as sink is almost nonexistent.
Mold production
an order is placed, Xiamen Meteor will then design an LSR molding tool.
Due to the flexible nature of LSR, parts are manually removed from the
mold, and thus, ejector pins are not built into the mold design. Like a
standard Protomold aluminum tool, an LSR molding tool is fabricated
using a combination of CNC milling and CNC electrical-discharge
machining (EDM) to create a high-temperature aluminum tool built to
withstand the LSR molding process. After milling, the tool is polished
by hand to customer specifications, which allows six standard surface
finish options: PM-F0, PM-F1, SP-C1, PM-T1, PM-T2 or SPI-A2. Others may
be available by request.
Mold production
LSR mold production
Part production
finished tool is loaded into an advanced LSR-specific injection-molding
press that is precision geared for accurate control of shot size to
produce the most consistent liquid silicone rubber parts. LSR molding
shares many similarities with conventional injection molding, but there
are a few notable differences. Unlike thermoplastic resin, which is
melted before injection, LSR is a two-part thermoset compound that is
chilled before being injected into a heated mold and ultimately cured
into a final part. Note that Protomold uses an automated meter mixing
pump to assure the exact combination of the two-part compound; nothing
is hand mixed. Since LSR is a thermosetting polymer, its molded state is
permanent - once it is set, it can't be melted again like a


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Kennedy Security Legacy
Between January 1961 and Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy fundamentally changed U.S. national security policy. These changes resulted in structures and doctrines that enabled American forces to fight in Vietnam in a new way that ultimately defined Kennedy's national security legacy.
Shortly after taking office in 1961, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara began reforming the Department of Defense (DoD). At the time, the Air Force, consuming the lion's share of DoD's budget, was rigidly focused on the doctrine of massive retaliation adopted in 1954 by President Eisenhower's administration. In the event of war, the Strategic Air Command's Single Integrated Operational Plan called for the delivery of 3,200 nuclear weapons on 1,065 targets in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China. In February 1965, when McNamara asked SAC commander Gen. Thomas Power if implementing that plan would have ended human life on earth, Power responded, "If three people survive and two of them are Americans, we win."
In 1959, U.S. Army chief of staff Gen. Maxwell Taylor retired to protest the Army's diminished role in the military. Soon after he published, "An Uncertain Trumpet" which blasted the doctrine of massive retaliation. Attracted by Taylor's concept of flexible response, Kennedy recalled the general to active duty first as his special advisor and then named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This appointment was much to the chagrin of other service chiefs, especially Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Curtis E. Lemay, who from 1948 to 1958 built SAC into the world's premier strategic nuclear force.
Rather than massive retaliation, the Kennedy administration embraced the doctrine of flexible response. Flexible response involved fewer strategic bombers and more fighter-bombers to support a larger military capable of fighting across a spectrum of warfare: from counter-guerrilla to low-intensity conflict to conventional warfare to limited nuclear warfare. To ensure SAC maintained a qualitative nuclear advantage, flexible response included putting 1,000 solid-fueled Minuteman Missiles in underground silos and doubling the number of Polaris missile-firing submarines.
Kennedy also embraced limited warfare concepts involving special operations and covert action. He started by doubling the size of the Army's special forces to the consternation of senior officers. While the Kennedy administration acquiesced to neutralizing communist aggression in Laos in 1962 by withdrawing U.S. military advisors supporting pro-American factions fighting the communist Pathet Lao, a covert war continued from Thailand. Through the Laotian U.S. embassy in Vientiane, the CIA ran the "secret war" in Laos. Starting in November 1961, Kennedy expanded the advisory role in South Vietnam by sending in Air Force "training" squadrons with the covert mission of providing air support for the South Vietnamese army. Kennedy's wars of plausible deniability were on in Laos and South Vietnam.
Soon, the corrupt and inept Ngo Dinh Diem regime's repression of Buddhists prompted riots and demonstrations. The South Vietnamese army unit's withdrawal from the countryside to deal with the unrest invited increased aggression by the Viet Cong, increasingly supported by North Vietnam. Kennedy had, from 1961, resisted efforts to Americanize the war by sending in U.S. combat forces. Instead, he increased the presence of advisors from a few hundred in 1961 to 16,000 by November 1963. He also threatened to withdraw 1,000 advisors by the end of 1964 if the Saigon regime didn't embrace meaningful socio-economic reforms. This leads some American scholars–determined to preserve the aura of Camelot–to posit Kennedy was on the verge of a major policy change that might have avoided the long, divisive military commitment in Vietnam. Perhaps. One might also ask what if, as some advised in 1961, Kennedy had committed 20,000 American troops to Vietnam to crush the Viet Cong while it was still weak?
While the "what ifs" of history are intriguing, it's what actually happened that counts. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson avoided making major decisions on Vietnam until after the November election. The focus shifted subtly, but also dramatically, to "not losing" rather than defeating the enemy and winning the war. Covert operations expanded into North Vietnam, albeit unsuccessfully, and a U.S. buildup, initially imperceptible, led to greater commitments. During 1964, the North Vietnamese stepped up infiltration of supplies and troops, rearming the Viet Cong with advanced weapons like the Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle.
Attacks in the South coupled with North Vietnam's reaction to U.S. covert operations in the North led to airstrikes in August 1964 and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. By this point, America's involvement in Vietnam was a course initiated during the Kennedy administration.
Under the aegis of Kennedy's "flexible response," Eisenhower's doctrine of massive retaliation gave way to "war management" while "not losing," under Johnson, supplanted the pursuit of victory. Not losing is far more precarious because it depletes initiative and substitutes statistical measures of success for operational results supporting definitive strategic goals. Kennedy's "plausible deniability," his national security legacy, was there at the conception of America's long Vietnam nightmare.
— Dr. Earl Tilford is a military historian and fellow for the Middle East & terrorism with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. He currently lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where he is writing a history of the University of Alabama in the 1960s. A retired Air Force intelligence officer, Dr. Tilford earned his PhD in American and European military history at George Washington University. From 1993 to 2001, he served as Director of Research at the U.S. Army's Strategic Studies Institute. In 2001, he left Government service for a professorship at Grove City College, where he taught courses in military history, national security, and international and domestic terrorism and counter-terrorism.
© 2013 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The views & opinions
expressed herein may, but do not necessarily, reflect the views of Grove City College.
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This article is more than 1 year old
Virident's tachIOn SSD flashes by
Coming thing or a goner?
Virident Systems has announced its tachIOn solid state drive (SSD) that comes as a PCIe-connect card with a claimed two to four times IOPS advantage over Fusion-io and LSI/Seagate PCIe products.
What's a tachyon? It's a supposed sub-atomic particle that travels faster than the speed of light. Apparently, if you could see one coming at you, it travels so fast that it is already past by the time you see it coming and you can see it going at the same time. Virident must be hoping that such a fate is not in its future.
Virident Systems is a start-up based in Milpitas, CA, and its product has field-replaceable modules containing single-level cell (SLC) flash chips from, for example, Micron, Samsung and Toshiba. There are three capacity levels: 200GB, 300GB and 400GB.
The tachIOn product delivers 1.3GB/s sustained read bandwidth with 320,000 sustained read IOPS using 4KB blocks. The equivalent sustained write numbers are 800MB/s and 200,000 IOPS. It is claimed that the products will last for 24 years with a 5TB/day write load. These are all impressive numbers.
Virident supplies end-to-end error correction and says it has both global and local wear-levelling. RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 10 are supported. The device also has TRIM support for Windows hosts.
The company claims tachIOn delivers its performance predictably and for much longer than other SSD products, and with higher performance than the other products as its capacity fills up. Its CEO, Kumar Ganapathy, says: "TachIOn is faster, more reliable, and offers better economics than competition ... Even at full capacity, tachIOn delivers high predictable performance."
Virident says it is going to deliver GreenCloud storage software to manage a fleet of tachIOns across a data centre, and this software will be delivered in phases. It will "enable large-scale deployment of SSDs, which until now has been hampered by capacity fragmentation and inconsistent availability of SSD resources to applications that need them".
We don't know what this means - whether it refers to very large tachIOn installations in individual servers or some way of aggregating multiple tachIOn installations across many servers. It occurs to us that we haven't needed any similar software to manage directly-accessed disk drive storage in servers, so what's the real problem Virident has in mind here?
Virident will be competing with Fusion-io, LSI, Micron and STEC for OEM deals with the main server vendors. These are Dell, HP and IBM, plus the others such as Acer, Fujitsu, Hitachi and Sun, plus the white box server trade. Fusion-io is making the running with deals with IBM and HP and a growing channel. LSI has a great existing OEM channel and STEC is looking to establish itself in this area, trading down from its enterprise flash drive high ground.
The likelihood is that this is going to turn into a dog-fight based on bandwidth, IOPS, endurance, reliability and price - a speeds, feeds and cost game with easy substitution of one vendor's PCIe card for another, much like one HDD vendor's drive can be substituted for another.
The big OEMs will prize delivery timing reliability, price and flexibility to their quantity needs. The smaller ones will be more price and performance conscious. It's going to be bloody until a stable set of vendors with stable technology emerges. ®


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Michael Jordan's daughter Jasmine is officially out of the closet!
The 20-year-old junior at Syracuse University confirmed that the woman in her recent social media posts is indeed her girlfriend.
"Until Love, Trust, Honesty, Repost, Loyalty, Commitment, Genuine, Happiness and other characteristics or aspects I want in a relationship is defined by one gender then and only then will I discuss my sexual preference," the sports management major wrote on her Instagram account.
MUST READ: PM BUZZ: Meet Raven's GF; Lamar Odom's Drug Dealer Speaks; Paula & Robin's Open Marriage & More…
MUST READ: Michael Jordan Says 'I Do' In Front Of 2,000 Guests & Books Usher As The Wedding Singer
According to Media Take Out, Jamsime's love interest has been identified as former Syracuse basketball guard Carmen Tyson-Thomas. Since the site broke the story, Jasmine's love life has been receiving a lot of media attention, but the NBA legend's youngest child said she not "bothered" by the claims.
"MTO has struck again! Lol but just like the last time, I'm chillin and not bothered," she wrote."Negativity go to the left and take a seat."
She added, "No time for that! Everyone have an amazing day!"
We are glad to see such a young lady standing in her truth with confidence and grace. You go, Jasmine!
Michael Jordan's Alleged Baby Mama Hit With $10K Fine Over Publicity Stunt
CONGRATS: Michael Jordan Marries Longtime Girlfriend Yvette Prieto [PHOTOS]
Check Out This Gallery
Michael Jordan's Daughter Confirms Her Sexuality was originally published on hellobeautiful.com


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(BPT) – Healthy food that also tastes good is always in vogue and now it's getting a spring makeover.
The theme of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) National Nutrition Month (R) this March is "Enjoy the Taste of Eating Right." As spring approaches and fitness routines move outdoors, AND reminds you that healthy snacks can fuel a workout, get you through the day and taste delicious.
"It's easy to get stuck in a rut with snacks," notes Becci Twombley, director of sports nutrition at the University of Southern California and ambassador for the American Pistachio Growers. "Spring is a time for renewal – cleaning out closets, setting new goals and making a fresh commitment to health and nutrition. Just as it's important to switch up your exercise routine every few weeks, you want to experiment with different snack combinations and have fun with your food. You'll be more likely to stick with a healthy routine if you keep it interesting."
Twombley's "snacks from scratch" involves some creativity. Try one of her snacking experiments below if you need a snack makeover this spring.
1. Pick one protein-based ingredient and think about different ways to eat it as a snack. Twombley often recommends pistachios as a performance snack for exercise because, calorie-for-calorie, pistachios pack more protein than most common snacks. Additionally, a serving size of pistachios is 49 nuts (more than any other tree nut), which provides 6 grams of filling protein and 3 grams of fiber for only 160 calories.
Research at the University of Toronto and Pennsylvania State University suggests that eating about 1.5-2 ounces of pistachios (about 20 percent of calories) per day helps curb the rise in blood glucose after a meal and lowers blood pressure, blood triglycerides and LDL-cholesterol, all of which, in turn, lower the risk for metabolic syndrome and heart disease. Researchers at Loma Linda University found that high tree nut consumption was associated with a lower occurrence of obesity and metabolic syndrome, increasing a person's risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke.
As a snack ingredient, pistachios can be baked into homemade energy bars, sprinkled on yogurt or combined with dried fruit in a make-your-own trail mix.
2. Work backwards. Think about your favorite snacks, and then experiment with different ways to add new proteins to that snack. For instance, Twombley loves the portability of sport bars, but not the lengthy ingredient list that can accompany some store-bought brands. Instead, Twombley encourages her athletes to make their own sport bars. The Pistachio Sport Bars recipe below combines the protein power of pistachios with energizing carbohydrates and allows you to control the ingredients in your own kitchen.
3. Get creative with the ultimate snack duo: protein and fiber. Rather than buying a traditional trail mix, make your own mix of pistachios and your favorite dried fruit. Mix pistachios with air popped popcorn for a satisfying and filling post-workout snack. Or make your own easy and portable American Pistachio Fruit Chews, which combine a mixture of fresh and dried fruit and pistachios.
Pistachio Sport Bars
Serving: 24 pieces
1 3/4 cups pistachios
1 cup dried banana chips
1 1/2 cups cornflakes
1/3 cup dried pears
1/3 cup dried apricots
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup crisp oat flakes
Chop the pistachios coarsely and banana chips finely. Partly crush the cornflakes. Cut the pears and apricots into small cubes.
Heat the honey and sugar over a double boiler until the honey and sugar are well combined. Mix in the pistachios, banana chips, cornflakes, pears, apricots and oat flakes. Spread the mixture in a square dish lined with baking paper (9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches), approximately 1/2 inch deep, and press well into dish. The bars can also be formed individually and then be put on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Bake the mix in a pre-heated oven at 350 F for about 10-15 minutes. Cut into bars of approximately 1 1/2 x 2 inches and leave to cool on a tray.
For more information about the health benefits of pistachios and recipes developed by renowned chefs, visit www.AmericanPistachios.org.


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I don't think I've used it in a recipe in three blogging years. 99c only Stores used to sell frozen 3 - 5 ounce super-thin beef steaks. Now a local chain grocery, Albertsons, is stocking 3 ounce, $1 Ribeye fillets in the frozen deli case. It is just the right amount for my delicious Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry.
One dollar is close enough to my price point for indulging in this bovine's most tender of cuts. Boy, how I like ribeye -- it's my favorite for grilling, and it has the right amount of marbling for sauteing. The only thing missing from these cheap packaged fillets is the bone for gnawing.
Now, three ounces for a dollar...that equals just over $5 per pound. Not the best deal, but an indulgence. I prefer to cook with a small fillet, and it's even cheaper that way. You can always buy one normal sized steak and cut it up, but the temptation is too great -- if you are like me, you will end up eating the whole friggin' thing! I bought a few filets to freeze, so keep checking back for more budget beef entrees from this loin lover.
A cheaper way to use expensive beef is to wait until a cheaper cut is on sale. At another local chain grocery store, Ralphs, tri-tips of beef were recently priced for $2.97 per pound. It's packaged as a large 3-4 pound slab of meat -- so to get the best value, you need to break it down into single serving sizes. That way it's even cheaper than the $1 filets of ribeye steaks I found! Tri-tip is not as tender as ribeye, but it works well in a stir fry.
Well, that's my beef about beef.
I think you will like this quick and tasty Chinese restaurant classic. (My wife made it the other day and raved about it.) And if you want an entree low in carbs, then this recipe is for you.
Broccoli is always on sale. It just needs a quick 5-minute steam before you add it to sauteing beef. The stir fry sauce is made of a little chopped garlic, Oyster Sauce and Soy Sauce -- pretty simple, but very flavorful.
Ingredients for Stir Fry (1 to 2 servings)
- 3 ounces of beef - tri-tips are a cheap cut. I got a $1 ribeye steak. Cut into bite sized strips. You can add more meat to appease your appetite.
- 2 cups of broccoli - chop and peel some of the stem. Break broccoli into smaller florets.
- 1/2 cup of water - to steam broccoli.
Stir Fry Sauce
- 3 tablespoons Oyster Sauce
- 1 tablespoons Soy Sauce
- 1 teaspoon garlic, chopped - fresh or from jar, optional.
Marinade for Beef
- 1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
- 1 tablespoon Soy Sauce
- 1 tablespoon Corn Starch - okay to substitute with flour.
- Pepper to taste - Soy Sauce has plenty of salt.
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil - for sauteing beef.
Mix marinade for beef in a small bowl. Slice beef into strips and add to marinade.
While beef marinates, break and slice broccoli, with the stem, into smaller pieces. I chop off the stem and peel some of it so heat will get in and tenderize. I break and slice bigger florets into smaller sizes.
Add 1/2 cup of water to a wok, or frying pan, and bring to a low simmer. Add broccoli and cover. (Okay to steam broccoli any way you like it.) Cook for about 3-5 minutes until broccoli is tender, but still has some crunch. When done, drain off the liquid (or, reserve to make more Stir Fry Sauce - see Hindsight below) and set aside broccoli.
Put wok back on stove-top over a medium heat. Heat pan until damp wok is dry. Add a tablespoon of cooking oil. Swirl oil to coat bottom of the pan. Add beef and marinating liquid.
Cook one side of the beef about 3 - 5 minutes until almost done. Turn the beef over, then pour in the Stir Fry Sauce.
Mix well and bring to a low simmer, until it is hot. Add cooked broccoli. Mix and heat through another couple of minutes.
Serve hot over brown or white rice, or cheap cooked (and drained) ramen noodles. It's also good on its own.
You can substitute beef with less expensive pork or chicken (white or dark meat.) Just remove pork from the bone and cut into bite-sized pieces -- for chicken you can remove from the bone, or in the case of chicken thighs or legs, just saute them whole (will take longer to cook through, add about 10 minutes more.) May need to add a little of the reserved broccoli water broth as liquid cooks out.
If you want more sauce for the rice, just reserve a 1/4 cup of the water you used for steaming (it's now a veggie broth.) When broth cools down some, add a tablespoon of cornstarch (or flour) and whisk to dissolve -- then add a teaspoon of Soy Sauce and 2 tablespoons of Oyster Sauce. Mix well. Add this extra sauce to the Stir Fry Sauce. Follow the rest of the directions. Sauce will thicken as it heats through.
If you are not a fan of broccoli, chunky sliced carrots (double the steaming time,) or even cauliflower, are delicious substitutions. Almost any veggie you like will do as well (spinach, asparagus, bell pepper, etc.) - alone or combined.